There is a wonderful confidence, notwithstanding these facts, possessing the whole nation. [Cheers.] Nothing strikes the visitor to Paris more than that.  There is a calm, a serene confidence, which is supposed to be incompatible with the temperament of the Celt by those who do do not know it. [Laughter.] There is a general assurance that the Germans have lost their tide, and that now the German armies have as remote a chance of crushing France as they have of overrunning the planet Mars. [Cheers.] That is the feeling which pervades every class of the community, and that is reflected in the money market there.  The difficulties of France in that respect are passing away, and the arrangement that has now been made in France for the purpose of raising sums of money to promote their military purposes will, I have not the faintest doubt, be crowned with the completest success. [Cheers.]

But we have a number of small States which are compelled to look to the greater countries in alliance for financial support.  There is Belgium, which until recently was a very rich country, devastated, desolate, and almost entirely in the hands of the enemy, with an army and a civil government to maintain, but with no revenue.  We have to see that she does not suffer [cheers] until the period of restoration comes to her, and compensation. [Cheers.] Then there is Serbia, with the population of Ireland—­a people of peasants maintaining an army of 500,000 and fighting her third great war within two years, and fighting that with great resource, great courage, and bravery. [Cheers.] But she had no reserve of wealth, and now no exports with which she can purchase munitions of war outside, and she has hardly any manufactures of her own.  That is the position as far as the smaller States are concerned.

There are also other States preparing for war, and it is obviously our interest that they should be well equipped for that task. They can only borrow in the French and English markets.

But we had our own special difficulties, and I think I ought to mention those.  Two-thirds of our food supplies are purchased abroad.  The enormous quantities of raw materials for our manufactures and our industries are largely absorbed in war equipment, and our ships in war transport.  We cannot pay as usual in exports, freights, and services; our savings for the moment are not what they would be in the case of peace.  We cannot, therefore, pay for our imports in that way.  We have to purchase abroad.  We have to increase our purchases abroad for war purposes.  In addition to that we have to create enormous credits to enable other countries to do the same thing.  The balance is, therefore, heavily against us for the first time.  There is no danger, but in a conference of the kind we had at Paris I could not overlook the fact that it was necessary for us to exercise great vigilance in regard to our gold.